James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

CG Art

Contact

or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

Permissions

All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Last week, National Public Radio reported that the FBI has been reassessing its investigative methods after failing to anticipate the unrest in the Arab world. Instead of using just covert tools, they’re now turning to Google Trends, checking, for example, when Egyptians started searching the word “Tunis.”
Google Trends gives you a rough idea of what people are thinking about, based on how many times they search a topic. If you compare the graph of search volume for pop stars, it’s clear that “Lady Gaga” (orange line) has quickly risen far above either “Madonna” or “Eminem.”

All sorts of fantastic beings are hot right now, especially, “vampires.”
“Zombies” came back from the dead a few years ago, gobbling up “fairies.”

“Steampunk” is chugging steadily ahead. People run hot and cold on “plein air” painting, depending how nice the weather is outside in the Northern Hemisphere.
----------Google TrendsNPR report

Does the last chart show not only the effect of the seasons on many outdoor painters, but does it also show the effect of a bad economy on them, too? The lower spikes after 2006 seem to coincide roughly with when the economy began to go downhill.

Can we learn anything from how the Steampunk graph shows growth during the same bad economy, when concept art, plein air, and performance art all show decline?

The uptick in the steampunk graph was one thing I noticed. I have been predicting for about 5 months that as far as a genre (Ex.Harry Potter, Twilight and Vampires), Steampunk is going to be big by the end of the summer.

I have been working bit by bit on a Steampunk style story for sometime, but being an artist not really a writer, it's slow goings. I hope the wave of Steampunk interest will still be rolling in and when I get it finished, that aside mark my words it's coming.